ROSE LAM

All rights reserved to Gordon Ramsay for photo and recipe used

T & T Supermarket

Location: 222 Cherry St, Toronto, ON M5A 3L2 Phone: (416) 949-6150 Hours: 7 days a week from 9AM-10PM

This week’s chosen animal is pig; specifically, the chosen cut is the pork’s belly or, popularly known as bacon. There are plenty of reasons as to why I would like to discuss about pork belly but mainly because it reminds me of my mother.

Pigs are widely known as pork and is classified under the Suidae family which consists of pigs, hogs and boars. Dating back around 4900BC, pigs were domesticated in China and also in Europe by 1500BC (Vann, 2009). Based on the belief that pigs were unclean since they ate just about anything and also waste, there was a fear of disease spreading if it were improperly cooked and was banned in Jewish, Christian and Muslim religion before 1000BC (Vann, 2009).

Domesticated pigs, often referred to as swine are raised for meat such as pork, ham, bacon; leather from their hide; and from their coarse hairs, called bristles, are commonly used for paintbrushes. Adult swine are classified by genders. Adult male swine are known as boars; females as sows; and piglets for young swine.

Pigs are a very intelligent species and is often argued that they are as smart as dogs. A typical pig contains a large head and long snout. The snout is used to dig into soil to find food in the ground. Just like dogs, pigs have an excellent sense of smell. They are naturally very hygienic animals, (sounds odd since they roll in mud) and have designated sites for defecating and urinating far from their sleeping and feeding areas. Near their nests, pigs have rubbing sites, most often trees, which are used to help in grooming when other pigs are not available to assist them. Pigs do not have sweat glands and are prone to heat stress. By wallowing in mud, it covers their bodies and also applies an extra protection from flies and prevents sunburns.

The cut chosen (pork belly) comes from, well, obviously the belly part of the pig just below the spareribs.

The purchased meat of $35 for a 10lb piece averages around $3.50 per lb. Although I did not personally purchase the meat, I have frequently explored this specific market. I feel the price for this cut is average among other markets and is acceptable.

The best way to utilize this cut for optimum return in my opinion would be roasting the pork belly. Reasons as to why roasting is the best possible way is because you get a nice texture on the skin from roasting and it also keeps the meat under the skin nice and tender.

There are many different cooking methods that can be applied to this cut for many different style cuisine and recipes. Listed below are the best ways to a cook a pork belly.

Boil or Poach – Usually found in Asian Cuisine, mainly Korean and Vietnamese cuisine for rice wraps or main course/dish meals.

Braise – Found widely around many cuisines. Braising is a long slow cook time that develops plenty of flavour and is perfect for turning tougher meat, fork-tender.

Roast – Provides the most flavourful, juicy and tender results.

Grilled – Quick and easy cook time with thin slices. Perfect for parties and barbecues.  

Smoked or Cured – How bacon is usually made.

Slow Roasted Pork Belly

Ingredients

·         1kg pork belly

·         Sea salt and black pepper

·         1 fennel bulb, trimmed and roughly sliced

·         4 fresh bay leaves

·         3 garlic cloves, peeled and bashed

·         1 tsp cardamom pods, bashed

·         4 star anise

·         1 tbsp fennel seeds

·         Olive oil

·         325ml white wine

·         500–750ml chicken stock (depending on the size of your pan)

·         1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

Method

          Serves 4

1.      Preheat oven to 350F.

2.      Score pork belly skin diagonally into diamond pattern. Season generously with salt & pepper, rubbing well into skin.

3.      Put fennel, bay leaves, garlic, cardamom, star anise and half the fennel seeds into hot roasting tray with a little oil and heat for 2 minutes until aromatic. Push ingredients to side of tray, add pork skin side down and cook for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Turn pork over, season skin again with salt and sprinkle remaining fennel seeds. Pour wine to deglaze pan, scape bits from bottom off (be careful not to get skin wet). Bring up to boil, pour stock just up to the layer of fat just below the skin and allow to boil again.

4.      Transfer tray into oven and cook for 2.5 hours.

5.      Transfer meat to warm plate and let rest. Meanwhile, spoon off any excess fat in the roasting tray or drag a slice of bread along the surface of the cooking juices to absorb it. Heat the tray on the hob, adding the mustard. Mix in with a whisk, then taste and adjust the flavours as necessary. Remove the star anise and cardamom pods and pour the sauce into a jug. Serve the rested pork with the sauce alongside.

Gordon Ramsay

Ultimate Cookery Course

By Hodder & Stoughton

Text © Gordon Ramsay 2013

References

Vann, Mick. (2009, April). A History of Pigs in America. Retrieved from http://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2009-04-10/764573/

Mississippi State University. [MSSTATEwfaTV]. (2011, January 11). Part 1, A Pickup Load of Pigs: The Feral Swine Pandemic - Natural History [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTIxox-46Aw

The Humane Society of the United States. (2009, November) More about Pigs. Retrieved from http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/pigs/pigs_more.html?referrer=https://www.google.ca/

~Kimchi (11/13/15)~

I have always been intrigued in Korean culture, lifestyle and food. Today I will use this opportunity to make Kimchi for the very first time. 

The raw food product that will be used in this recipe is Napa Cabbage.

The technique used to turn the cabbage into Kimchi is fermentation.

Throughout the making of kimchi, I have already come across 2 out of 3 biggest fermenting mistakes.

Mistake 1: Refrigerating your ferment 3-10 days after you pack your jar.

This is my biggest mistake of all. I misread the recipe and thought that I had to refrigerate my kimchi right after making it! (Terrible mistake, yes I know.) Thankfully, I caught this mistake not too long into the process and making of my kimchi (only left it in the fridge for half an hour).

Not leaving your kimchi to ferment on your counter longer before transferring to cold storage is a huge mistake. If you want maximum probiotics in your sauerkraut (and I think we all do!), you’ll want to let your ferment go through the three stages of fermentation.

Temperature and the amount of salt plays a big role in fermentation. Kimchi usually has to sit in room temperature (65-72F) for 3-7 days but other sources say that fermenting Kimchi at *41-50F) for 15-20 days results in the most tasty Kimchi.

“Refrigeration slows down food spoilage; I think we all know this. In the case of fermenting, you are also slowing down the bacterial action. The LABs (lactic-acid producing bacteria) dislike cold, and they cannot truly thrive in it (read: prolifically reproduce). So, you want to leave your sauerkraut out a minimum of four weeks to give time for your sauerkraut to go through all three bacteria stages.

Remember, fermentation is a method of preserving food. Leaving it on your counter gives it more time for the LAB activity to increase — which, in turn, lowers pH — and prevents spoilage. As long as your jar can keep out the oxygen, you shouldn’t be worried.”

Mistake 2: Not using a jar that keeps out the oxygen.

Of course I have thought about this while shopping for my Kimchi ingredients and have also pondered about what to leave my Kimchi in as well (container wise). I settled down with an airtight sealed plastic container. Most people who make Kimchi use either Mason jars or traditional underground jars.

“Oxygen is the enemy when it comes to ferments. LABs prefer an anaerobic (oxygen-less) environment, and our goal is to keep those little guys happy, right? Aerobically (with oxygen) the yeasts in your ferment can be oxidized to form acetic acid (vinegar), which is not what we’re making here. Yes, you want some tang, but you can achieve tang without vinegar. The candida-preventing yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has the ability to shift from fermentative to oxidative depending on the level of oxygen available. Keep the oxygen out, and this friendly yeast can help your guts heal.

So how do you know if your jar is keeping out enough oxygen? There are a few red flags that can tell us: browned cabbage, yeasty odor, pink cabbage, slime, and mold (we’ll come back to mold in a bit).”

Mistake 3: Scraping away mold and thinking it will not harm you.

Although i did not experience  this mistake, it is also good to know and learn that if it molds in anyway, it is no longer good.

Mold can make you sick, very sick. Some people show symptoms right away; others end up with mold sensitivities or other gut issues that evolve over time. It’s just not a risk I am willing to take.

Make sure to keep your tools, hands and station clean! Remember, the key to fermentation is to welcome the growth of good bacteria and prevent bad bacteria.

Here is the chosen recipe:

Prep time: 3-4hours  //  Ready in: 2days-4weeks (can vary, depends on you)

Ingredients:

Makes about 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of Kimchi

For salting cabbage:

6 pounds napa cabbage (3 to 4 heads of medium napa cabbage)

½ cup kosher salt 

For making porridge:

2 cups water

2 tablespoons sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour)

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar (brown or white sugar)

 Vegetables:

2 cups radish matchsticks

1 cup carrot matchsticks

7 to 8 green onions, chopped

1 cup chopped Asian chives (buchu), optional (substitute with 3 green onions, chopped)

1 cup water dropwort (minari), optional

 Seasonings and spices:

½ cup garlic cloves (24 garlic cloves), minced

2 teaspoon ginger, minced

1 medium onion, minced

½ cup fish sauce

¼ cup fermented salted shrimp (saeujeot) with the salty brine, chopped

2 cups hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)

 Directions

Prepare and salt the cabbage:

 If the cabbage cores stick out too much, trim them off.

To split a cabbage in half without shredding the densely packed leaves inside, first cut a short slit in the base of the cabbage, enough to get a grip on either half, and then gently pull the halves apart so the cabbage splits open.

Cut a slit through the core of each half, 2 inches above the stem. You want the cabbage leaves to be loose but still attached to the core.

Dunk the halves in a large basin of water to get them wet. Sprinkle the salt between the leaves by lifting up every leaf and getting salt in there. Use more salt closer to the stems, where the leaves are thicker.

Let the cabbages rest for 2 hours. Turn over every 30 minutes, so they get well salted. From time to time you can ladle some of the salty water from the bottom of the basin over top of the cabbages if you want to.

After 2 hours, wash the cabbage halves a few times under cold running water. Giving them a good washing, to remove the salt and any dirt. As you wash, split the halves into quarters along the slits you cut into earlier. Cut off the cores, and put them in a strainer over a basin so they can drain well.

 While the cabbage is salting for 2 hours, and in between the times you’re turning it over, you can make the porridge:

 Combine the water and the sweet rice flour in a small pot. Mix well with a wooden spoon and let it cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until it starts to bubble. Add the sugar and cook 1 more minute, stirring. Remove from the heat and let it cool off completely.

Pour cooled porridge into a large mixing bowl. Add garlic, ginger, onion, fish sauce, fermented salted shrimp, and hot pepper flakes. Mix well with the wooden spoon until the mixture turns into a thin paste.

Add the radish, carrot, and green onion, plus the Asian chives (or more green onions) and the water dropwort if you’re using them. Mix well.

Make kimchi:

Spread some kimchi paste on each cabbage leaf. When every leaf in a quarter is covered with paste, wrap it around itself into a small packet, and put into your jar, plastic container, or onggi.

Eat right away, or let it sit for a few days to ferment.

On fermentation:

The kimchi will start fermenting a day or two at room temperature, depending on the temperature and humidity of your room. The warmer and more humid it is, the faster the kimchi will ferment. Once it starts to ferment it will smell and taste sour, and pressing on the top of the kimchi with a spoon will release bubbles from beneath.

Once it starts to fermented, store in the refrigerator to use as needed. This slows down the fermentation process, which will make the kimchi more and more sour as time goes on.

Taste:

During the process of making the Kimchi, there were many times I had caught myself “taste testing”. The Kimchi is very salty and tasted like the ocean. During the fermenting process, the salt eased down (became not so salty like the ocean) and was replaced with a sweet, sour and tangy flavour. Although during the process of making the Kimchi, there was sweet rice flour and sugar added but did not become very evident after the fermentation process. The sweetness was mild, the sour and spicy flavour was much more evident.

The final product of Kimchi had 5 ingredients that stood out the most while biting into and chewing it: garlic, onions, ginger, salt and hot pepper spice.

Before the fermentation process, the kimchi had a much lighter red stain to the cabbage. During and after the fermentation process, the colour grew much darker and duller.

It has a very strong smell of all the spices used. The most prominent ingredient that stood out was the garlic.

Although there were many mistakes made during the process of making Kimchi, the experience, time and effort was well worth it. “Practice makes improvement” definitely applies to this experience as well.

Overall, I believe my first creation of Kimchi alone (without help) is very successful. There were a few ingredients that were missed in the recipe (couldn’t find them anywhere I looked) that could and would have made a difference to the overall texture, taste and fermentation of the Kimchi. I will be sure to retrieve all the proper ingredients for this traditional kimchi recipe and learn from my many mistakes. Instead of using granulated sugar, I would have liked to use brown sugar for a richer and sweeter taste.

Sources and References:

 Michaelis, Kristen. (2012, July) The 3 biggest fermenting mistakes you’re already making – Food renegade. Retrieved from http://www.foodrenegade.com/3-biggest-fermenting-mistakes-youre-already-making/

 Maangchi. (2014, June 22). Traditional Napa Cabbage kimchi recipe – Maangchi.com. Retrieved from http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tongbaechu-kimchi

~ Fruit Hunter (10/23/15) ~

St Lawrence Market

Location: 92-95 Front Street East, Toronto, ON M5E 1C3Tel: 392 – 7219   Hours:     Monday&Sunday - closed, Tues ~ Thursday -  8 am to 6pm Friday -  8am to 7pm Saturday -  5am to 5pm

Of course there would be many reasons as to why I decided to explore St Lawrence Market but the main reasons would be because it’s close to my college, big, and a new environment to me (personally, i didn’t even know it existed until i started college).

While exploring this new market environment, I came across many fruits and vegetables that are extremely familiar to me in almost every market i go to (pretty much all the same). Now deciding which fruit i would present and talk about was difficult. Many peers and classmates were choosing things like figs, persimmons, peaches etc. and i had to choose something that would be equally as unique to me as well as knowing that maybe over 100 other students would have the same assignment as well. So i chose the cantaloupe (originally i thought i had grabbed a honeydew but had too many things going on at the time of my selection and mistakenly grabbed a cantaloupe without knowing until i got home. It turned out well anyways ^-^).

Although there is quite a debate on where it originates from, there are many resources that link cantaloupes to Egypt. Supposedly there are drawings of cantaloupes in Egyptian paintings dating back to the Biblical era and was identified as a melon. It is now mainly being grown in Europe because of the fact that they need warmer temperatures and a winter-free season for at least 120-140 days. Given these factors, it limits the production of these melons in Canada to southern Ontario, British Columbia (Okangan Valley), southern Alberta and Manitoba, and drier parts of Nova Scotia (Annapolis Valley). They belong to the Cucurbitaceae family which is also known as cucurbits or gourd family. As to seasonality, referring back to the earlier point, cantaloupes need to be in a warm-hot consistent weather (for example, if you wanted to grow one in Canada, it would be best to grow over the summer).

Market pricing for these melons were $3.99 ($4 w/o tax).

This may be weird but the cantaloupe strangely, has a similar taste to vanilla when it is licked to taste. After biting and chewing into it, the vanilla taste disappears and becomes a sweeter savory taste.

Cooking with cantaloupes: Roasting technique

Although i like my fruits fresh and raw, cantaloupes can be roasted to have a completely new taste to it. Why roast it? Roasting foods in an oven has a controlled temperature and tends to cook food more evenly opposed to pan frying. It is also healthier and does not require fats (oil) to cook.

Roasted Cantaloupe recipe:

Prep time: 15min // Cook time: 20mins // Ready in: 35mins

Ingredients:

- 1 Cantaloupe - 2 tablespoons of sugar or vanilla sugar (optional)

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 400F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 2) Wash, cut in half, remove seeds from melon and cut into cubes 3) Toss cubes in sugar or vanilla sugar 4) Roast cubes in oven for 20 minutes or until they begin to look a little shriveled and has started to caramelize. 5) Cool and serve over oatmeal, yogurt, ice cream, custard or anywhere you need fruit accompaniment.

I am very happy with the choice of fruit i have made and what i have learned from this experience. By choosing this fruit, i have had a chance to learn different cutting and plating techniques through error and trial.

The pictures attached below is just a simple homemade salad (from playing around and mostly error and trial).

Ingredients used in above pictures:

-1/8 Cantaloupe -½ Tomatoe -1 Avocado -30g Proscuitto -30g Pastrami -Stems from shallots for garnish

*Sizing may be inaccurate as this was done by eye*

Sources and references:

Pereira, Parun. (2011, Oct 1). History of Cantaloupe. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/history-of-cantaloupe.html 

Leblanc, Hugues. (2012, September 18). Melon. Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/melon/